


Patience & Ignorance

by susiephalange



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And Has Been Since 2008, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, F/M, Female Protagonist, Happy Hogan Is Done With Your Shit, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12888885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiephalange/pseuds/susiephalange
Summary: It isn't always a dream working for Tony Stark and the Avengers. At least one of your co-workers, Happy Hogan is around to commiserate with.





	Patience & Ignorance

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request from a Wattpad user.

The end of year holiday is always the worst time of the year. People who were assholes became bigger assholes. Lines at the coffee shop down the street from work became longer. People dressed like terrible imitations of Santa rattled their jars, got photos for money, got donations for praise, sang awful carols, over, and over, and _over_!

It got colder, and not just outside. At work, too. Mr. Stark would be everywhere and nowhere, often neglecting his company, his place as an Avenger. As his secretary, it sucked. But then again, you hated the holiday season anyway, not even thinking about work – it was just the most terrible time of year.

Not that you’re a Grinch or anything; you’re just not payed enough for this shit.

And it was holidays when the heroes were needed everywhere on Earth, leading you to be manning the facility upstate with your fellow down-on-luck employee, Harry “Happy” Hogan. Like you, he’d been hardened by the job, except, literally. The poor guy had gone from regular-joe, to hell and back, to fed up – all without being a superhero. The number of times you had to fill in for his position as well as yours just because he’d been shot, injured, pissed off or knocked out while protecting Mr. Stark – well, you just didn’t have enough fingers to count those occasions.

At least the miserable have company, right?

Especially since the press were hot on your tail to catch up on an official statement now that Spiderman was an official Avenger. You were just a paper-pusher! The person who picked up the trash, ordered other people’s Christmas gifts in their name, and pretended to be okay with taking none of the credit. Oh, and the whole Captain America running off into the wind after the kerfuffle in Germany? That was on you to tell them, now that the old secretary Ms. Potts was now officially with your employer.

“You look like you need another coffee,” someone says.

You glance up from your work station to see it’s Happy. He’s in the suit he always wears, the 2005-esq glasses tucked where a handkerchief would be if anyone used one these days. There’s a five o’clock shadow on his jaw, and a twitch in his eye. Looks like someone else has been working late nights too, well, you must, to keep up with everything.

“What I need is a pay raise,” you mutter, pushing the keyboard from you, going to stand. “And a word with these assholes. First that kid rejects being an Avenger, now he is one? The media will eat me alive if I don’t perfect this by ten freakin’ minutes ago.”

Happy gives you one of his humourless smiles. “I’ll grab you that coffee.”

You sigh, pushing a hand through your hair. Before you upon the screen is an empty document, the title on the word processor the subject of what press release you are stating on behalf of the superheroes that brave and save the American people. The curser lazily pulses, empty of words, waiting for you to procure them like they can be bought, or magicked up like you’re some fancy sorcerer and not a typist.

Muttering an expletive, fall back into the desk chair with a groan.

He pushes a mug of something strong before you, and one in his hand too. “You should be glad you didn’t work for Stark when he was starting this whole thing.” He tells you, taking a long sip of his coffee. You consider your mug, and even though it’s late on a Wednesday afternoon early in December, you take down it all, like a shot. “It was a shit-show from day one. I mean, who the hell does this for a living?”

You smile, but don’t mean it.

Happy means you both by the last part, not the man you work for. It’s crazy – one day you were working for the _New York Bulletin_ , chasing people for stories, and the next there were people in spandex and aliens in the sky, and you were given a job to work _with_ them. And to fend of the people you used to work for. You loved the job, you truly did. It was just the rough spots you hated.

“To us,” you toast grimly to Happy, fingers poised above the keys, starting to type something monotonous to get the story-chasers off your back. “The idiots stupid enough to love the job, and stupid enough not to leave.”

* * *

By the time that statement you handed in runs, it’s nearing the time where it gets unbearable. Christmas lights, _everywhere_. Kids screaming when you’re just running errands around the city like it’s your paygrade or something. Crime rates skyrocketing, so the team you’re supposed to micromanage is off on tangents trying to save Christmas or something. At least the bakery you like stocks the gingerbread you practically live off, otherwise, you’d almost consider handing in effective notice of resignation and use your savings to live somewhere like rural Australia where nobody lived nearby for miles.

People ignore you when you’re downtown. It’s nice. You’re never ignored when you’re in the compound – it’s always __________ this_ , __________ that_ , __________, please make sure that this diplomat gets a thank you note from us_ , ___________ … like it never ended. Downtown, you’re just another woman wearing all-black, holding a stack of presents and a fake Christmas tree on the subway because it was always your duty to clean out the dead thing when January came around. You’re just _hey, lady!_ to a stranger, not _________, super nanny.

But as soon as you’re off the train, being picked up at the station by Happy, it’s over. Back to buckling down, back to business. At least he helps you put all the parcels you’re holding in the car, and getting in to drive off, he doesn’t ask about your day. Doesn’t talk about what it’s going to be like, getting back to the facility. Doesn’t turn on the radio to blast some popstar’s new-and-improved Christmas carols.

It’s quiet. Nice.

Pulling into the garage, you’re aided by Wanda Maximoff, and Vision. They’re both wearing ugly sweaters, and they both volunteer to help take in the parcels inside. You should have guessed they were just there to make you unaware of the ambush inside. Tony Stark hands you a camera, and to Happy, a length of green and red tinsel.

“_________, we need you! Just a couple of –,” Tony says, dashing around. The team all wearing terrible lumpy sweaters, from Commander Rhodes in his wheelchair, Steve Rogers and Mr. Barnes wearing matching Christmas hats, to Natasha Romanov. They all stand before the window, with the view outside behind them, “Scott, I need you – perfect.”

You look down the camera, and take the pictures. They need them on Christmas cards to be sent around to the friends and family of the team as soon as you can. Before you can take off to your desk to prepare the new task, though, the Parker kid stops you with a web, and taking the camera from you, gets Happy to stand beside you. You’re not sure what he’s up to, but you go along with it. The team get out from the shot. Vision takes the tinsel from Happy, and he and Wanda drape it around both of your shoulders.

The photo is taken before you can protest.

That afternoon, you send off the team’s photo to be printed. Flicking through the files, you open the picture taken after, of you and Happy. There’s two pictures – one where you’re both standing there, looking like there are places to be, and not enough time in the working week to get it all done. He’s got his signature frown, you, the tight-lipped no-nonsense business face. On the next photo, though –

You sit there, staring at the screen of your computer where the camera’s SD card is linked to, silent. Unmoving. It’s the longest time you have really sat down, and not have another urgent issue upcoming in a long time, and staring, you are caught on the photograph you see before you.

The tinsel, a sparkling festive reminder of the time of year around your shoulders glints in the picture, drawing you both close together. In the few seconds between the first photo and this, his face is turned toward yours, and in the place of the frown he always wears, there is a small smile, the edges of his lips pulled up. Your face is flushed, and looking closer, you see your hand is brushing his. The blush is obviously because of the embarrassment of being caught in such an unprofessional position while at work. Yes, that’s it. Not because you’re so close to him.

Your fingers hovers over the keyboard. Unsure what to do next, you frown, and then sigh. You wipe the memory of the camera’s SD card, and put it on top of the _outgoing_ tray on your desk to give back.

But not before you print of a copy of that picture. 

* * *

It’s a week before Christmas and your family down in Hoboken have no reply still when they asked you a month and a half ago if you’d make it for Christmas. Your mother had texted, your stepfather sent an email. Even your kid sister, she’d messaged you on Skype a week ago, and all you could tell her without disclosing that you basically worked for toddlers in billion-dollar life-proof suits that you weren’t sure (and that if you came, you weren’t sure if they’d survive a day without you).

So, there are three loose threads.

You haven’t made it back to Jersey for a single Christmas since you earned your job with Mr. Stark. Perhaps that’s why you dislike the holiday, because there’s no secret gift giving, no fake Santa footprints left out by your father – your real father – and no smiles and love and laughter that the people who raised you and planted your roots brought.

But all the while thinking of this, you’ve missed every word that’s come out from Tony’s mouth in the last ten minutes, and only now he realises that you’ve been daydreaming of life when it had been so much simpler.

“_________?” He asks.

You look to him, puzzled. “You don’t need me here,” you tell him, softly.

Your employer frowns. “_________, what do you mean? The team, we’re talking about the escort for the American embassy between us and the Canadian Prime Minister,” he says.

You shake your head. “I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realise…you have over five, no, six A.I.’s, and they’re smart. Smarter than me! I’m basically pushing paper when they could – I’m useless to you!” you tell him, voice rising. “I wish the rise of robots led to me being fired earlier, rather than –,”

Clint interrupts, “What do you mean?”

“I want to quit,” you tell Tony Stark. “It’s slog, day, night, every day and every night, yet here I am, doing things that F.R.I.D.A.Y. can do!” you exclaim, and moving from where you’re seated, you scatter the papers in the brief you’d been handed, the pages going every which-where. “I give my notice, sir. It’s more than hard working here, especially this time of year.”

You storm out of the room, leaving the Avengers still in the wake of the tempest you brewed, yet, if you stayed a moment longer, you would have heard a whisper.

“It’s not the Avengers if there isn’t _________,” Scott Lang says.

But you’re out of the elevator, and down two levels down the facility, and furious it took you so long to realise how unhappy you were in your job, you don’t look where you’re going. It doesn’t help that you’re hardly looking where you’re going – it’s those factors that lead to you to smack into Happy’s side, and fall.

Or, you would, if the seasoned security chief hadn’t caught you in time.

“_________,” he says, “Why are you crying?”

You didn’t even know you had been.

You don’t really consider it, even, because in that instant, those tears become thicker, and when Happy rights you, and sets you back on your feet, you crumple to the ground like a sagging balloon castle, and let it all out. The austere man known for snappy comebacks and straight-lipped smiles bends down, and sits beside you on the floor in the middle of the common area, unsure what to do.

You keep crying.

“What’s –,”

You sob. “I’m useless. You all don’t need me here.”

Happy’s quiet for a second. Through the torrent of tears, you see him hesitate to touch your shoulder, and giving in, he gives your elbow a sort of awkward pat. He considers it, and then, places a hand beside you. “Did Tony tell you that?”

You shake your head.

“I – I’m no good at words,” he prefaces, “But if you’re just saying that because of all the shit we deal with 24/7, then you’re lying to your own damn self, _________.” Happy tells you firmly. “You’ve done nothing but good things for him, for all of us, and if you can’t see that, well, then you need some big glasses,” he says. “I heard what you said upstairs.”

You place your head in your hands, feeling the sinking sensation of shame and sadness welling inside your lungs, weighing you down. “Did Tony tell you already?” you ask, knowing your boss’s history of tweeting about something 0.02 seconds after it happened. “Oh no…”

He shakes his head. “No, I heard it. Thin walls.” From upstairs you hear a raucous commotion, but ignoring it, Happy adds, “Just…if you’re going to leave, don’t do it because of what you said upstairs.”

You consider it, and wiping your tears with a sniffle, you say, “Okay, Happy.”

* * *

It takes half a day to clean out your desk after you give your verbal resignation, and the other half to move out from your personal quarters on site at the Avengers facility. You don’t talk to anyone, and hiring a U-Haul trailer, it’s all packed away by yourself, everything you brought, and the little things you’re taking with you that you’ve accumulated in your time working for Mr. Stark.

You told your family that you were coming home for Christmas, and if you buckled down and drove through the holiday traffic, you’d make it from upstate New York to Jersey not too long after sundown. It was a four-hour car trip, and after all the crap you’d gone through, you think that you can do it. But as you’re leaving with keys in hand, leaving without a proper goodbye to the team, you’re met a familiar face.

Happy stands at the driver’s side of the car, between you and leaving.

“Happy –,”

You go to protest, but he interrupts. “_________, I can’t let you just leave.” He looks to his shoes, and adds, “We’ve worked together for almost five, six years? You know my order of coffee as well as I know yours. We mutually hate Tony’s arrogance, and how much trouble they all get into.”

“Happy –,” you whisper.

“I feel like everyday it’s a better day because when you’re around, it is. I don’t know what I did before you came along,” he says, confessing. “I just – now you’re not my colleague, I wanted you to know that, er, if you had time, or wanted to, I’d take you out. Dinner, drinks, maybe a movie?”

You nod, feeling your heart beat faster in your chest.

Happy was always there when the shit hit the fan. He made a bad day good, just by making a passing comment or staring at something terrible until it cowered and fled or disintegrated. He never made you uncomfortable, hell – all the times he was around, it was like coming home. When he had brought you coffee. When you went Christmas shopping. Yesterday, when he saw your soul while crying on the third floor.

When you had that picture of the both of you taken.

“I can’t believe I’m so stupid,” you mutter to yourself. “I’ve been into you this whole time, and –,”

You’re interrupted by a flail of limbs, and out from the facility runs Tony, closely followed by Peter Parker. They both look like it’s the end of all ends, and while Tony stops running and stands a good way from you, maintaining personal space, Peter pummels you, almost knocking you down with a big hug.

“Please don’t leave us,” the kid superhero begs. “You’re the best person ever. Better than my favourite teacher at school, don’t go!”

Tony nods. “I’ll give you a raise, _________, and nicer rooms, and the holidays off, every holiday,” he gushes, “and a better set of insurance benefits –,”

You hug the Spider Man back, and stop Tony in his tracks. “I’ll stay.” Beside you, Happy smiles a rare grin. “And no takebacks on any of those things, you hear me? It’s hard work keeping up with all these superheroes.” You glance to Happy, who in turn, looks to you. “But…I told my family I was coming home for Christmas.”

Tony nods, “Go – take Happy with you. I’ll write a cheque for them too, say, thirty grand? No, I’ll make it fifty, that’ll send your sister to college.” He tells you. “I’m not kidding. I’ve been a shitty neglectful boss, it’s the least I can do.”

You glance down at Peter, who, in realising he’d been hugging you for too long, lets go.

“Thank you,” you tell them, and to Happy, you say, “How about a Christmas dinner first date? My Mom has a great stuffing recipe…”

The holidays were perhaps the worst time of the year. But from then on, for you, they were not. People who were assholes did not and would never mean a thing to you. Work for the Avengers turned out to be more than wonderful after the escapade. Your relationship with Happy blossomed, turning into something greater than you could ever imagine.

A year and a half later, your name officially became _________ Hogan, and another year after that, you both had a daughter, born three days before Christmas. The carollers and the snow and the awfulness of the holidays became something much better than you could ever imagine – much more than you could ever had hoped for.

**Author's Note:**

> Buy me [ko-fi](https://www.ko-fi.com/M4M3P4NJ)?
> 
> If you have any requests, find me on Tumblr at @susiephalange, or [@phalangewrites](https://phalangewrites.tumblr.com/request_conditions) ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ✿


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